Part 1 : Division
If “Never Again” means “Never Again,” it’s necessary to spot the signs that might indicate democracy is threatened. Totalitarian regimes arise with certain dynamics, and if we do not understand these signals, how do we protect hard won freedoms? And when trigger warnings appear that might be red flags for a direction of travel that is dangerous, we must take a closer look. How else to prevent repeating atrocities of the past?
Throughout the ages, a well-used technique of the tyrant has been that of divide and rule. Here, I am talking about social division that is deliberately sowed by those in power.
An aspect of this division is to create a “superior” group which looks down on the other group as lesser beings who are deemed a threat to the them, the “unworthy”.
Tyrants can divide the population on the basis of many things, including class, gender, or race. As outliers and a minority, Jews have been targeted multiple times by governments looking for a scapegoat. The most well-known example today is the targeting of Jews by Hitler and the Third Reich and its catastrophic consequences.
This is not an examination of antisemitism. This is a look at tyranny and at the authoritarian measures regarding COVID-19 being employed by governments around the world. Are these measures about keeping the public safe or are they a signifier of tyranny?
The year 2021 has seen the implementation of government policies around the world that have created a division between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. From my own life science training and from the mouths of immunologists, as seen in the Covid Symposium, 2021 with Byram Bridle, Viral Immunologist, creating this division is false. It is accepted science that there are two ways to achieve immunity, with natural immunity following infection being one of the two methods. The science is inclusive, yet government policy is unnecessarily divisive. The latter says you only contribute to public health if you are vaccinated. Even if you have good immunity from infection (which is durable and robust as confirmed by countless studies), this is not recognized in the UK and the USA, for example, and only for six months in Europe.
In the UK, radio and TV presenters frequently lay into the Covid recovered telling them they must get vaccinated. This is not science based. It is unprecedented. You don’t vaccinate people already immune.
Good health policy, I was taught, unites the population, it does not demonize or coerce. However, we are now entrenched in a situation which is giving rise to the very opposite of good practice.
Some vaccinated members of the public are acting out the government messaging that only the vaccinated “count.” They are the righteous and superior, and the unvaccinated are inferior and unclean. Here is a Facebook comment addressed to someone, Covid recovered, explaining the research on natural acquired immunity:
It is easy to find many Facebook posts saying the unvaccinated should be sent to camps.
Coming out of the pandemic, shouldn’t we be seeing a lessening of picking on the unvaccinated? However, in November, 2021, as hospitalizations and deaths fall in relation to case numbers, rather than dial down the othering of the unvaccinated, the rhetoric and measures against them has been ramping up.
Esther Rantzen on the Dan Wootton show on GBNEWS in November 2021, says the unvaccinated should be denied care from the NHS, including those who don’t take the booster.
In Austria, on November 15th, 2021, the unvaccinated have been forced to lock down. Police are carrying out random spot checks on individuals and have the power to issue €400 fines.
Health care policy has always been to lock down the infectious, the symptomatic, the sick and to let healthy people get on with their lives.
Germany is adopting the same policy, along with the Czech Republic, Slovakia and maybe Italy to follow.
This is despite the death rate being much lower now than during the pre-vaccine peak, according to Germany’s disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute.
The British media are polling the public to see if they want the policy here.
This group is already so “othered” in the mainstream media it is seen as acceptable to ask about removing their civil liberties.
Let me repeat: deaths from Covid are way down compared to this time last year. In addition, the ONS say over 90% of people in England have antibodies against SarsCov 2. And it’s accepted, even by the British Prime Minister, that the vaccines don’t stop you from getting or passing on the virus.
There is no public health justification for discriminating against a section of society. And that is before discussing civil liberties. This is the stuff of propaganda that sets a group up as unworthy, to which wrongdoing is justified. This is scapegoating.
In the UK, since November 11th, we have already seen a mandate to sack 60,000 care workers for being unvaccinated. Most of whom will already have acquired natural immunity through working on the front line through the pandemic. As have the 100,000 NHS workers facing the same mandate in April 2022. There is no science or sense in this. Immunologists recommend those with naturally acquired immunity as the best protectors of the vulnerable.
Are these public health measures just governmental overreach that will recede or are we witnessing tyranny walk in under the cloak of public safety? I suggest there are enough red flags to be vigilant. Policies based on prejudice and not science are to be resisted vehemently, let alone policies that create a two-tier society.